Taiwan’s constitutional court paves way to legalise same-sex marriage

Taipei/Taiwan, May 25: In a historic decision, the constitutional court in Taiwan, which is country’s top most court, has ruled that current law defining marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman was ‘unconstitutional’, thus paving way for the first same-sex marriage law in Asia.

The legislature now has two years either to amend the Civil Code or to enact laws addressing same-sex couples.

The New York Times quoted the court as saying in a news release that if the legislature fails to pass an amendment or legislation in the next two years, same-sex couples “shall be allowed to have their marriage registration effectuated at the authorities in charge of household registration”.

Following Wednesday’s ruling, Woody Wang, president of Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy said that everyone was happy.

“We don’t want to see the legislature dither on this,” he said.

The ruling from the court has come in response to two petitions to review the current law.

The first one was brought by Chi Chia-wei, a longtime gay rights campaigner and the second petition was brought by the city government of Taipei which was sued after rejecting marriage applications from same-sex couples.

The current legislative session ends on May 31, and the next session opens in September. (ANI)